Barbara Bernard: Great-grandmothering makes her an expert on how far we've come since the 1950s

Barbara Bernard is shown here with her grandson, Geoff, and his children, Tim and TheoSubmitted Photo

Do you ever wish you could travel back many years and either start all over and change things?

Or, are you, as I am, remembering today what life was like back then and comparing it with how different things are today?

In a column a year of so ago, I mentioned hanging clothes on a clothesline and other things we did because some of today’s conveniences had not been invented, or, if they had, it was too early in many of our lives to afford them.

A friend said she wished she could go back then but know what she knows now. I said I never wanted clotheslines in the dead of winter, but we talked about how much wiser we could have been with certain choices.

My concentration with today’s column is on women who are pregnant. Having watched one of my daughters go through two pregnancies, my granddaughter have two children and my granddaughter-in-law now pregnant with her third child, I’m getting pretty darned close to being an expert.

Today’s maternity clothes are actually beautiful. In my day, I relied on my mother’s ability to sew. There seemed to be only one pattern; it was for a skirt which had a huge hole cut in the front of it and long pieces of fabric which tied. As the pregnancy marched on, the fabric ties were adjusted. The other part of the two-piece ensemble was a tunic which came down sufficiently long to cover the skirt hole.

In winter, the sleeves on the tunic were long and in summer short. Because I had one baby in January and one in May, I had both the winter and summer styles. I also had a “holiday” maternity outfit. It was the exact same style as all the others, but it was made of green satin, and the collar and cuffs were adorned with sequins.

Underclothing was something else. There were ties on the panties, and the greatest embarrassment of my life took place in Holyoke. I was in front of Hirsch’s jewelry store on High Street when, somehow, the ties on my panties came undone and the panties slipped down. I felt them going, but there was no way I could pull them up in the middle of downtown. So, with a fear of falling, I just stepped out of them. At that very moment John “Bud” O’Hare, Holyoke’s wonderful police chief back in the day, was behind me. He bent down, picked them up, handed them to me, said, “Have a good day, Barbara” and walked on. He never mentioned the incident to me again, but I always felt myself blushing whenever I saw him.

When I was having my babies, there was no rule about car seats, and, when I think of what we did use, our little ones must have been in such danger. Baby furniture was something else, too, and the standard cribs used in my days as a young mother were later discovered to be dangerous and are now outlawed.

Back in my day, someone named Grantly Dick-Read, a British obstetrician, was espousing natural childbirth, something which is encouraged now. Today, husbands are in the delivery room. My husband was out looking at the new cars which were going on sale that day.

Everything was sterilized back then. I remember boiling bottles and diapers and then seeing my child on a blanket on the floor, chewing on her shoe. Sanitary?

There was no such thing as maternity leave for fathers, and most hospital stays after delivery were at least 14 days. In my case, I felt my daughters were ready for kindergarten by the time we got out of the hospital.

Those long hospital stays for mothers of my generation meant none of us ever saw a baby’s umbilical cord. When my grandson came home with my daughter after just two days, I panicked when I saw this green rope coming from his navel. My granddaughter and granddaughter-in-law have both come home from their deliveries within 48 hours.

No, I would not like to return to the olden days, even knowing what I know today. Naturally, I have no desire to have more babies, but I am happy that members of my family don’t feel that way. Today’s pregnancies and deliveries are so much easier. Â